RFID's, I thought they'd dropped this!

I did not mean to come across as saying anything bad about your contribution. To the contrary, as I said I was present at work when law enforcement had a guy triangulated into an area by checking his car phone. I was simply stating that it is a different and less exact form of tracking.

[edit on 10/18/2005 by defcon5]

Originally posted by defcon5
Another trend that I noticed, which I truly do not care for is the amount of companies requesting your finger prints as part of your background check. When you give out your finger prints to a company, they are sent to the FBI, who digitizes them and adds them to their database. They don’t just get pitched out once you’re cleared of having any aliases.

What happened to the days when you only had to give out your finger prints if you WERE a convicted felon, or applying for some type of clearance? Now, as of 2001, to work in many fields, including getting your license in most medical professions, you have to surrender your finger prints.

It's interesting to see the reaction of top supporters of these intrusive measures on their fellow American citizens when they find themselves under suspicion.

Proponents of the Real ID Act say it adheres to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and is needed to frustrate both terrorists and illegal immigrants. Only a portion of the legislation regulates ID cards; the rest deals with immigration law and asylum requests. "American citizens have the right to know who is in their country, that people are who they say they are, and that the name on the driver's license is the real holder's name, not some alias," said F. James Sensenbrenner, Republican-Wisc., last week.

"If these commonsense reforms had been in place in 2001, they would have hindered the efforts of the 9/11 terrorists, and they will go a long way toward helping us prevent another tragedy like 9/11," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Republican-Texas.

www.zdnet.com.au...

DeLay will likely be booked in a Texas county jail this week despite attempts by his attorneys to bypass the fingerprinting and mug shot process.

msnbc.msn.com...

Originally posted by defcon5

I was simply stating that it is a different and less exact form of tracking.

Don't you think the threat comes when large data bases start to integrate all these data points?

Of course there will be RFID readers everywhere collecting data , but people also carry around phones and other wireless devices that can read RFID signals and up-link data as well.

Edit: Let me just spell out what I'm thinking.

Say we want to locate Person X.

Say that we have a Data Base that collects all RFID information from Wal-Mart and other entities.

Say that wireless devices during the course of normal use register RFID signals and report that Data back to our Data Base.

All we need to do is to search for Person X , and the Data Base will identify all known RFID signals that can be directly linked to Person X , and that will allow us to track Person X's RFID Profile anytime he passes a wireless device or RFID reader.

[edit on 18-10-2005 by lost_shaman]

Originally posted by rancid1
Think military applications.
No more "lost" equipment, troops, you name it. EVERYTHING accounted for.

Hey sarge, I misplaced a nuke during that training excercise last week. Do you recon the RFID reader will reach North Korea?

There are many good things that it can (and should) be used for, but also it would be very easy to over do it. Unless there are huge controls in place to stop it being abused everyone had better move to tahiti, lithuania, antarctica or the mid atlantic trench. Although theres not much we can do to stop it going forward. With the speed that the berlin wall went up (in those days), it wouldn't be hard with todays technology to do a mass rollout with great speed.

I've done a fair amount of reading on RFID chips. In my opinion, they are indeed as scary as everyone here seems to suggest they are, except for one thing. RFID chips do not carry their own power source, and cannot transmit anything unless a scanner is nearby. (nearby meaning maybe 10-20 feet) RFIDs in their current form have potential for abuse, but unless you get close to somebody, I don't see how it can get very bad.

And there's other ways to spy on people too, like scanners that can listen in on cordless phones, or dig in their trash for private mail, or hack their computer, or that sort of thing. I see RFID as one more nail in the coffin of individual privacy.

Maybe it's time to wallpaper my house in tinfoil...

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
I've done a fair amount of reading on RFID chips. In my opinion, they are indeed as scary as everyone here seems to suggest they are, except for one thing. RFID chips do not carry their own power source, and cannot transmit anything unless a scanner is nearby. (nearby meaning maybe 10-20 feet) RFIDs in their current form have potential for abuse, but unless you get close to somebody, I don't see how it can get very bad.

And there's other ways to spy on people too, like scanners that can listen in on cordless phones, or dig in their trash for private mail, or hack their computer, or that sort of thing. I see RFID as one more nail in the coffin of individual privacy.

Maybe it's time to wallpaper my house in tinfoil...

Bzzzzz Wrong answer.

As far as "you've read".

RFID chips can/do carry their own power source. And the range is farther than you think. Nuff said on this one, Just trust me.

DragonsDemesne

It depends on the reader. The ones used on the expressway can scan your car traveling full speed from 30 or more feet away. Right now the handheld readers are about the size of a palm pilot and can scan 5 to 10 feet away. So what they do is to place these in choke points. Like the entrance/exit to every store, public facility, entertainment complex, place of business, hospital, etc. As more of these readers are sold, they will decrease in both size and expense, making it possible to place them in virtually every doorway you pass through, not to mention overhead and underfoot.

Originally posted by rancid1
Bzzzzz Wrong answer.

As far as "you've read".

RFID chips can/do carry their own power source. And the range is farther than you think. Nuff said on this one, Just trust me.

First time I have heard this, what do they use as a power source and what is the life expectancy of that power source?

To my knowledge most were passive.

Darkelf has been conducting research of RFID technology for quite a while now and has tons of interesting info. His thread is at:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by defcon5
To my knowledge most were passive.

I also thought this was the case. Like the microchips they put in pets etc. Passive unless they are scanned.

I hate when this happens

While I was researching the new Homeland Security Secret Data Network, I happened accross this RFID tidbit.

Earlier this summer, DHS released a request for information for radio-frequency identification products to put them at the 50 largest land ports of entry. DHS also is piloting RFID technology at five locations to detect RFID chips embedded in travel documents carried by international visitors as they approach ports of entry. The tests started this month and are scheduled to last until March 2006.

www.gcn.com...

(See the paragraph on U.S. Visit, a new process of verifying the identity of foreign nationals at U.S. ports of entry and checking them against databases of terrorists and criminals.)

Originally posted by llama009
Hey sarge, I misplaced a nuke during that training excercise last week. Do you recon the RFID reader will reach North Korea?

That's why they don't use the real items during exercises. I'd look really bad on the commander's OER if his unit misplaced an item!